It's that magical time of year, far better than Christmas or birthdays or anniversaries (at least for me).
It's tax rebate time!!
Now, I was a good adult and paid off all of the credit cards and got caught up on the bills. I bought a (truly awesome) dining set for a steal because we needed a real place for us to gather as a family and eat together. We bought our son a new Cars bed and a Cars toilet training seat, because he's currently obsessed with Lightning McQueen. We replaced headlights in cars.
So, in short, we've done all the things we should have done with our refund money.
Then, because there was a little money left over, and I really, really, really want to make Erin Russek's My Tweets (the link leads you to Erin's Etsy shop for the patten for the center). This was Erin's Block of the Month for last year, and I faithfully downloaded all of her patterns (which are now also available in her Etsy shop).
Anyway, I digress from the point of this post, sort of. In my quest for the perfect fabrics for this pattern, I went on a little buying fling... Well, more of a spree.
Okay, honestly?
I went crazy.
I started at Joann's:
And found this really nice blue solid, a whole bolt of it. And I had a 50% off coupon. So I bought everything on the bolt. There was something like 9 3/8 yards. I also found the print on the right, which I decided went perfectly with the solid, and bought three yards of that.
There was a 30% off the cotton prints sale about a week later. I treated myself to a half yard each of the fabrics pictured above. There's sort of a plan emerging here.
But it wasn't enough!!
Because I realized I was super low on white thread. Connecting Threads to the rescue:
Ten spools of white in my cart later, and I still needed more in the cart to make the minimum for free shipping. So I hit up the clearance fabrics:
I ended up with a half yard of each, except for the last fabric. I got a full yard of the gray and yellow scroll fabric.
And, still, not enough!!
I paid a digital visit to Fat Quarter Shop. BIG MISTAKE! Not that I could be dissuaded from hitting the 'Buy' button. I've never purchased so much designer fabric in my life:
The orange is Happy Mochi Yumyum. The two on the right are from Joel Dewberry's Heritage Line. I can't remember what line the gray came out of.
Everything else pictured below, I got a half yard of. Apparently, I'm experiencing an obsession with Pat Bravo at the moment, because I ended up with a ton of her prints.
There is now a ridiculous amount of fabric on my table waiting for me to get busy and start cutting.
The second meeting (4/25/10) of the Milwaukee-Madison Modern Quilt Guild was at the Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc, and was a workday for us. It was nice to be able to sit with such a diverse group of women and work on our various projects. There's a good variety of skill levels and experience in this group.
A lot of things were discussed, from developing a logo for our branch of the Guild, to sharing our skills with each other, schoolhouse style, to developing a site away from the Ning network, which has hosted most of the sites for the different MQG branches across the county. Our problem with Ning is that it's simply not user friendly and pretty clunky, and now there's talk of Ning no longer being free. In my opinion, it's simply not worth the monetary investment for the very basic options offered.
I've volunteered to help develop a logo for the branch, along with Sandi. I just have to sit down and brainstorm some ideas. Ideally, the logo will have a couple of different iterations: black and white, or grayscale, for basic (i.e., cheaper) printing purposes, and a full color design for web display and nicer print projects. I can also foresee a need to have a 'shortened' logo - one using simply the initials of the guild name, as well as one that encompasses the full guild name. So, okay, more than a couple of iterations! Really, I'll end up with between six and eight working logos, developed based on potential need.
I'm not particularly wowed by the logo created for the Modern Quilt Guild as a whole... It's geared solely toward web display, and would be very print unfriendly in a gray-scale. The challenge here will be to transmit the idea of this being a quilt guild in a visual format that renders down to something smaller than the size of a standard American business card, while still retaining the idea of 'modern'. I mean, we are talking about quilting here!
I didn't get much done, but I did get something done! I finished my tote bag... sort of. Getting home, I realized that I should have put the straps on differently, for easier carrying. Then, when I was photographing it tonight, I discovered that I'd sewn a pin into one of the straps. Ah, well. Lessons for another bag! Sometime this week, I'll fix those two small things. I also got the pieces cut for a basket block.
Speaking of the Basket Blocks, Sandi has gotten Block 11 done. Yay! But 'boo' as well, as I'm no further along than I was, which is Block 5. I'm woefully behind in making blocks, as well as posting them. My apologies, dear readers.
And for any of you that might go by the Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc and not pass through its doors, I urge you to stop and visit! The fabric section is just lovely, with quite a nice selection of quality fabrics of the bright and modern variety and a good variety of batiks. The management was kind enough to give us all 10% off coupons good for the day, which I used with shameless abandon.
Eclipse, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! I am just totally in love with this fabric line, and bought quite a bit of it. That in itself is a statement, as I just don't normally buy whole fabric lines. I just can't get enough of this pure, mood-lifting yellow combined with black and gray. It's pretty without being too girly.
I also picked up a yard of Essentials II by StudioeFabrics. If you haven't taken a look at StudioeFabrics, go. Look. I'll wait.
...
Nice stuff, right? Okay, better than nice, gorgeous! They're a 'newer' fabric manufacturer, only a few years old, if I remember correctly. And it's totally a sign of how much a logo geek I can be that I adore that lower-case, red 'e'!
I also picked up Elegance by Rosemary Lavin for Windham fabrics. Pretty, and motivated entirely by my ongoing obsession with black and white fabrics. I don't know why, but I'm totally enraptured by black and white fabrics at the moment. The difficulty is in finding quilting cottons in these two 'colors' that are unique.
This coming Saturday is Sandi's Family and Friends monthly quilting day. I'm scheduled to bring the main dish, which I'm looking forward to, because I might try something new. If I'm on the ball Saturday morning, I'll actually remember my camera and get some photos.
I attended the International Quilt Festival on Saturday, April 17, 2010. I spent most of the day roaming the vendors, disappointed by the lack of bright, modern fabrics for sale. However, I am very glad I did go. This is the last year for the International Quilt Festival to call Rosemont 'home'. Next year, the show will relocate to Cincinnatti, Ohio, due to feedback from convention goers regarding local eateries, hotels, and parking.
The quilts on display were a mixture of antique quilts, and more modern offerings. Quilts from the 2009 Hoffman Challenge were on display as well, though it was only a small selection of the 300+ items that are in the travel rotation from this particular challenge.
As I said, I was a little disappointed with the vendors. Overall, there were just a ton of Civil War reproduction fabrics, a lot of wool felting, and lots and lots of simple, simple patterns. I'm not into the colors of Civil War reproduction fabrics, generally speaking. As a whole, I find the colors a little too 'blah' for my tastes and design tendencies.
As could probably be expected, Kaffe Fassett's were the primary offering for bright and modern fabrics. Yeah... No thanks. While I might like individual fabrics by Fassett, I would never create a quilt using solely his fabrics. In general, I regard his designs as Technicolor vomit. Far too much going on there for my eye, especially since I have taken graphic design courses in the attempt to get a degree and be able to actually call myself a graphic designer, and effective use of negative space as a resting point for the eye was constantly stressed. I don't understand the blind adoration people have for his designs...
I did find Vogue Fabrics' booth, and snatched up four different batiks, a yard of each at $4.99/yard. I picked up two more batiks at another booth, for $7.50/yard. I also discovered "Eclipse" by Exclusively Quilters. I absolutely adore the combination of black and gray with that pure yellow!
One of my favorite booths was the Patched Works booth. I loved the fabrics on display, as well as a good number of the quilts. Funnily enough, one of my fellow Milwakee-Madison Modern Quilt Guild members worked that booth! Check out Jen's blog, and her photos of the booth here.
I also picked up a jar of Waterblocker Skin Cream, which I highly recommend! My hands suffer from chronic dry skin. I handle a lot of fabric throughout the day, as one of my primary job functions is to fold t-shirts. I'm also responsible for steaming sample shirts in prep for photography. So, dry, cracked skin is pretty much the norm for me. Not so with this amazing cream! Even better, it's all natural, which my son's bum loves! Zeb-head has sensitive skin, and we can't use anything with chemical scents on him, and he doesn't always respond well to different diaper rash creams. I used the cream on his little bum, and, with only one application, the diaper rash immediately started receding. Honestly, this was probably the best buy of the show for me!
Astonishingly enough, I picked up two patterns by Jane Spolar of Quilt Poetry (image courtesy of website, as I was too lazy to scan them in, and my photo would not have done these patterns justice). They are "Floral Meditation" and "Phoenix".
I love the rosemaling look Spolar's patterns have, and I highly recommend that you take a trip to her site and have a gander at all of her offerings. Apparently, she also has a fabric line, called "Bliss", for Northcott Fabrics. I might have to buy some of this when it releases.
Now, I say "astonishingly enough" in regards to buying patterns because I'm just not normally a pattern person. When I make a quilt, I don't want to make the exact same quilt that hundreds of other individuals have made. I regard my quilts as expressions of my creativity, and how creative is it for me to use someone else's design?
Part of this resistance to patterns also comes from the fact that a good chunk of the patterns out there are so very simple, that they're easily replicated without buying the pattern. Why should I spend money on a pattern that ten minutes and a decent set of math skills can re-create? That's fabric money. Sure, there's the flip side. Why not pay $10 and save yourself the basic math? I just can't. I taught myself to quilt, which included designing my quilts and planning out measurements on graph paper. I will always fall back on my own skills to produce a quilt, which includes designing it myself.
Patterns like Jane Spolar's are, clearly, the exception to my rule. I would never have the imagination for designs like those pictured above. I just don't have the background, artistic or quilting, to have anything like that come to mind. When I draw, I do so very realistically, and have difficulty abstracting an image into basic, yet flowing shapes.
Anyway, there you have it. My experiences at IQF 2010. I might try to swing a trip to IQF 2011 in Cincinnati, but that's really dependent on hubby and having friends to stay with!
Now that I'm all caught up with birthday blocks, I've been able to do some sewing for myself! My project of choice: Sandi's Basket Quilt Along over at Piecemeal Quilts. I've been lucky enough to be able join Sandi and the group of wonderful ladies she quilts with once a month, in person!!
It's sooooo nice to have quilting friends!
Anyway, these wonderful ladies are putting together basket blocks from instructions by Sandi. All of the instructions are available on her blog. Just scroll down and look for them on the right hand side of the page. They're in PDFs, so you can save them for later or print to work on now.
The last two sessions with Sandi and the ladies, I was able to see some of their basket blocks. It's really fun to see how much we all differ in our fabric/color selections. Me? I chose to go with a white, black and red color scheme. Very striking, very fun.
Then I got to my stash... Still loving the red, white, and black. But it needed something.
Some red.
Check.
Some black.
Check.
Lots of white.
Check.
And some...
LIME GREEN!
I'm a big one for 'zinger' fabrics.
Make it POP!
I am just loving the way this is coming together! I took liberties with the color placements in the patterns - I just can't follow a pattern to the 'T'!
And of course, I had to buy fabric to enhance this quilt:
Aren't these just gorgeous together? I'm debating the polka dot or the wavy, red/black stripe for the binding. I think I might have the perfect red/black Alexander Henry print in my stash for the backing - depending on how much I need once I'm done.
The plan is to make two more blocks this weekend, along with at least one set of Birthday Blocks for the month of April. I also need to make at least one large tote bag for the International Quilt Festival in Rosemont, IL. That's coming up quickly, and, well, it's a quilt show. That means fabric. That means I need something to carry my goodies in, since backpacks are verboten.
Maybe I'll even make a matching roll-up for my quilting tools, so that I can use the tote bag for taking projects with me to my quilting activities.
Oh! Speaking of quilting activities... I've gone and joined the Milwaukee-Madison branch of the Modern Quilt Guild. That's TWO groups of quilters that I get to hang out with!! Our second meeting should be coming up this month. It looks to be a sewing day! See? This tote thing is becoming more and more necessary.
Well, I'm off to put together another basket block. These things are addictive!
My intention tonight had been to get a backing together for Flying Geese II.
I am made of fail, though. I managed to select fabrics to audition for the backing, got as far as getting them out to the living room, and that was that. I fell asleep with the kiddo, and woke up about an hour ago, with the desire to eat a beef and bean burrito. So, Flying Geese II continues to laze about on the living room floor. Perhaps tomorrow...
In other news, as implied by this particular post's title, I have progress and pretties to show off!
First, the pretties. One of the members of the Birthday Block Swap requested bright batiks. I forget which member at the moment - but it is 2:07 AM. I'll let this slide, LOL.
In a happy coincidence, Joann's happened to be running a sale on batiks for 25% off, as well as having a coupon for 10% the total purchase. Score!
Aren't these just scrumptious? The one on the far left is my absolute favorite out of the bunch. I might go back on Friday, and purchase more if there is anything left.
And now for the progress...
I am sad to say that there is no ironing fairy, at least for me, so everything here was done by me. Several hours, much cursing at my slowly dying, in-need-of-replacement iron, and cramping of the shoulder muscles and the hand holding said iron... Ta-daa!! PROGRESS.
I buckled down and have worked my way through a good portion of the stash enhancements that have been languishing for attention. Stack on the left, done. Stack on the right, still in need of attention. *whimper*
A trip through the blog, Sonnet of the Moon, has resulted in the OCD need to re-visit my stash and begin the process of re-ironing and, most importantly, trimming the selvage off my fabrics. I read her post on fabric storage, and was inspired.
Why do I care? Well, really, it's just a convenience thing. If I cut the selvage off right away, there's nothing but usable fabric on my shelving. This means that I can just grab my selections and begin cutting patches right away. Nothing to hinder me from simply diving in. No to mention, it just looks better on my shelving. My eye is drawn to the fabric, not the white edging peeking out of a folded bundle.
Sonnet of the Moon may have also solved a quilting quandary for me! I've been debating what to do with a certain set of coordinating fabrics. I love them. They're gorgeous, and screamed my name whilst still on the bolt. (I'll post a pic later, when I've better lighting and the oomph to take a decent photo - now being 2:32 AM.)
The problem? Now that I've got them home (been here for a couple of months now), they taunt me from the shelf... They're too match-y, match-y. As a quilter who has, in the past, delighted in throwing fabrics at each other and seeing if they bond, these are just too... pat? ...neat? ...coordinated? ...alike?
A satisfactory word eludes me.
But, oh! They're gorgeous, and demand to be used. I'm just not the sort of quilter who can take a batch of coordinated prints and make something happen with just those prints. I've since purchased fabrics that might work - some Kona Cotton solids in coordinating colors, and prints from other lines. Still, the problem lies in just what to do with them. They're large enough that they call for a larger, simpler block to showcase the fabrics.
To the rescue - this post, a lovely tutorial simplifying the Bento Box pattern! Some lovely examples of Bento Box quilts here, here, here, and here, not to mention Sonnet of the Moon's delicious yellow and green example in her post. I especially love the quilting and colors of the last link. Just adorable!
On that note, I will leave you. Despite the lateness of the hour, I'm still determined to get up each day at 7:30 AM. I'm an unapologetic morning person, and can get quite a bit done if kiddo follows his usual pattern of independent playing upon wakefulness.
I'm very bad. Very, very bad. I keep promising to use my stash, but instead of using it, I add to it. To be fair to myself, I had never anticipated the difficulty of sewing around a rambunctious seventeen month old who is instantly jealous of anything Mommy does that isn't centered around him. Zebediah is my sweetums, but he's a demanding sweetums.
Anywho... This is what I get for having a Joann's two doors down from work, and for loving color and pattern.
The photo shows off what I've managed to acquire since the beginning of the year. What you see there is 28 yards, and that's not all of it. Just what is washed and ironed (I prewash everything!). I am so disturbingly ill, but I just can't find the willpower to find a cure.
Looking over this fabric, I am struck by the range of patterns and colors. I don't normally stick to a 'genre' of fabric, the way some of my quilty acquaintances do. I just have to see potential in a fabric, and it will probably make it into my stash.
Speaking of the stash... With these purchases, I have officially broken the 400 unique fabrics mark. It's funny, too, looking back. Some of these fabrics are from when I first started quilting, 15 years ago. The way my tastes have migrated from very traditional, tiny prints to, well, anything under the sun, just strikes me.
I wonder if I'll break the 500 mark before the end of the year. I don't know if I can afford to! My fabric closet is running out of space!
On that note, I'm going to escape to my sewing machine while the going is good. Zeb is asleep, and I've dug out one of my tops that was just awaiting the last borders to be put on (again with the prerequisite cat):
Not one of my favorite tops. My original intention had been to have the entire top be composed of the black bordered blocks. That failed when I discovered that I didn't have enough of that black fabric.
Not being one to give up, I decided to switch tactics and throw in big squares of coordinating florals.
I've been sitting on the coordinating border print for a while. Just didn't have the ambition to sew it on. Now, I do. I've got my Little Gracie II and my Janome 1600P, and I want to put them to use. This particular quilt will be the first one I machine quilt AT ALL, as well as the first on my new set up.
So, shortly, I'll have those borders on, and I'll press that top one more time. After that, I just have to purchase more muslin for my fabric leaders and some tubings for the Fabri-fast system, and I'm ready to start quilting!
